The Effects of Group Composition and Social Preference Heterogeneity in a Public Goods Game: An Agent-Based Simulation

Behavioural economics highlights the role of social preferences in economic decisions. Further, populations are heterogeneous, suggesting that the composition of social preference types within a group may impact the ability to sustain voluntary public goods contributions. We conduct agent-based simulations of contributions in a public goods game, varying group composition and the weight individuals place on their beliefs versus their underlying social preference type. We then examine the effect of each of these factors on contributions. We find that social preference heterogeneity negatively impacts provision over a wide range of the parameter space, even controlling for the share of types in a group.

[1]  B. Frey,et al.  Social Comparisons and Pro-social Behavior: Testing "Conditional Cooperation" in a Field Experiment , 2004 .

[2]  Colin Camerer,et al.  Measuring Social Norms and Preferences Using Experimental Games: A Guide for Social Scientists , 2002 .

[3]  M. Olson,et al.  The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups. , 1973 .

[4]  E. Fehr,et al.  Fairness and Retaliation: The Economics of Reciprocity , 2000, SSRN Electronic Journal.

[5]  A. Alesina,et al.  Public Goods and Ethnic Divisions , 1997 .

[6]  Robert Sugden,et al.  Reciprocity: The Supply of Public Goods Through Voluntary Contributions , 1984 .

[7]  J. Ledyard.  Public Goods: A Survey of Experimental Research , 1994 .

[8]  P. Zak,et al.  Trust and Growth , 2001 .

[9]  Benedikt Herrmann,et al.  Measuring conditional cooperation: a replication study in Russia , 2009 .

[10]  R. Dawes,et al.  Social welfare, cooperators' advantage, and the option of not playing the game. , 1993 .

[11]  J. Zelmer.  Linear Public Goods Experiments: A Meta-Analysis , 2003 .

[12]  Robert Kurzban,et al.  Experiments investigating cooperative types in humans: a complement to evolutionary theory and simulations. , 2005, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[13]  Takuji Nishimura,et al.  Mersenne twister: a 623-dimensionally equidistributed uniform pseudo-random number generator , 1998, TOMC.

[14]  T. Besley,et al.  Public goods and economic development , 2006 .

[15]  Matthew E. Kahn,et al.  Civic Engagement and Community Heterogeneity: An Economist's Perspective , 2002, Perspectives on Politics.

[16]  Ananish Chaudhuri.  Sustaining cooperation in laboratory public goods experiments: a selective survey of the literature , 2011 .

[17]  G. Marwell,et al.  Experiments on the Provision of Public Goods. I. Resources, Interest, Group Size, and the Free-Rider Problem , 1979, American Journal of Sociology.

[18]  A. Banerjee,et al.  The political economy of public goods: Some evidence from India , 2007 .

[19]  Rachel T. A. Croson.  Theories of Commitment, Altruism and Reciprocity: Evidence from Linear Public Goods Games , 2007 .

[20]  Simon Gaechter,et al.  Conditional cooperation: Behavioral regularities from the lab and the field and their policy implications , 2006 .

[21]  Jacob L. Vigdor.  Community Composition and Collective Action: Analyzing Initial Mail Response to the 2000 Census , 2004, Review of Economics and Statistics.

[22]  J. Andreoni.  IMPURE ALTRUISM AND DONATIONS TO PUBLIC GOODS: A THEORY OF WARM-GLOW GIVING* , 1990 .

[23]  P. Mauro.  Corruption and Growth , 1995 .

[24]  A. Alesina,et al.  Participation in Heterogeneous Communities , 1999 .

[25]  Wolfgang J. Luhan,et al.  Cedex Discussion Paper Series , 2022 .

[26]  S. Zamir,et al.  Bargaining and Market Behavior in Jerusalem, Ljubljana, Pittsburgh, and Tokyo: An Experimental Study , 1991 .

[27]  G. Becker,et al.  A Theory of Social Interactions , 1974, Journal of Political Economy.

[28]  Christian Thöni,et al.  Social Learning and Voluntary Cooperation Among Like-Minded People , 2004 .

[29]  E. Fehr,et al.  Fairness and Retaliation , 2000 .

[30]  U. Fischbacher,et al.  Why Social Preferences Matter - the Impact of Non-Selfish Motives on Competition, Cooperation and Incentives , 2002 .

[31]  Elinor Ostrom,et al.  Heterogeneous Preferences and Collective Action , 2003 .

[32]  Rachel T. A. Croson.  Theories of Commitment, Altruism and Reciprocity: Evidence from Linear Public Goods Games , 2007 .

[33]  R. Cornes,et al.  The theory of externalities, public goods and club goods. 2nd. ed. , 1996 .

[34]  Mary Kay Gugerty,et al.  Ethnic diversity, social sanctions, and public goods in Kenya , 2005 .

[35]  W. Easterly,et al.  Africa's Growth Tragedy: Policies and Ethnic Divisions , 1997 .

[36]  Richard Cash,et al.  Health as a Global Public Good , 1999 .

[37]  M. Rabin,et al.  Understanding Social Preference with Simple Tests , 2001 .

[38]  Sidney C. Sufrin,et al.  The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups. , 1966 .

[39]  U. Fischbacher,et al.  Are People Conditionally Cooperative? Evidence from a Public Goods Experiment , 2001 .

[40]  R. Cornes,et al.  The theory of externalities, public goods, and club goods: Externalities and private information , 1996 .

[41]  张谷.  实验经济学（Experimental Economics）研究思路及成果应用简述 , 1994 .

[42]  William Easterly.  Can Institutions Resolve Ethnic Conflict?* , 1999, Economic Development and Cultural Change.

[43]  Bryan C. McCannon,et al.  Does an Economics Education Affect Behavior? Evidence from a Public Goods Experiment , 2013 .

[44]  Francesco Guala,et al.  Heterogeneous Agents in Public Goods Experiments , 2005 .

[45]  P. Hazell,et al.  Government Spending, Growth and Poverty in Rural India , 2000 .

[46]  G. Hardin,et al.  The Tragedy of the Commons , 1968, Green Planet Blues.

[47]  D. Collard.  Altruism and economy , 1978 .

[48]  Rachel Croson,et al.  One bad apple? Heterogeneity and information in public good provision , 2009 .

[49]  E. Miguel.  Tribe or Nation?: Nation Building and Public Goods in Kenya versus Tanzania , 2004 .

[50]  Raymond Geuss.  Public Goods, Private Goods. , 2001 .

[51]  Linxiu Zhang,et al.  Growth , Inequality , and Poverty in Rural China The Role of Public Investments , 2002 .

[52]  R. Boyd,et al.  In Search of Homo Economicus: Behavioral Experiments in 15 Small- Scale Societies , 2001 .

[53]  David F. Labaree,et al.  Public Goods, Private Goods: The American Struggle Over Educational Goals , 1997 .

[54]  N. Shafik.  Economic Development and Environmental Quality: An Econometric Analysis , 1994 .

[55]  J. Andreoni.  Giving with Impure Altruism: Applications to Charity and Ricardian Equivalence , 1989, Journal of Political Economy.